I’ve been typing up my diary entries from last December, and realizing that my idea of a busy weekend six months ago has become what I would consider a relaxing weekend now. I’m not sure if it has to do with living in cohousing… though I suppose that must have more than a little to do with it. And yet I still feel that we’re far less involved that most.

Yesterday was “Pie Day” at work (in fact about pie day times two, as official “pie” day is 3.14). A total of 12 pies were brought in for judging. Unfortunately, the night before I had gone with my mom to our first “Meditation for Stress Reduction” class, and hadn’t had time to bake a pie. So Garry had bought a berry crumble at Trader Joes, which consisted of no less than 6 types of berries, including cranberries. Needless to say it was a little tart, and came in tied for last place. =D

Misc Spring Photo

After work we had to go meet Reese at her unit to help her plan how to stage and sell the place. A typical Arbco conversation, we spent the first hour talking about holistic cat medicine, and only managed to spend the last 15 minutes creating a plan of action. We have to go over there again tomorrow morning to help her stage things and take pictures.

Then it was the birthday pizza party for Karen E. and Janet K. Of course I had had pizza for lunch (pizza “pie”, get it?) but one can never have too much pizza. We sat with Sheila and Oscar and discussed marriage and the insanity of the modern 300-people wedding (one of my coworkers just had a huge wedding and another is planning one, so I’m surrounded by blindingly garish engagement rings and discussions on brides made dresses from J. Crew.)

After we got back to the unit, we took Baxter for a walk, and then my parents called asking if we wanted to come get donuts and watch the sunset on Observatory Dr. Even though we were stuffed, only an idiot would refuse donuts. =)

That was yesterday. Today we woke up at 7:30 and ate our donuts for breakfast (there are benefits to being a squirreler), then off to the Saturday farmer’s market. Today’s shopping: green onion, mushrooms, strawberry jam, cheese, and new potatoes (I love eating local!). And as a donut is apparently not enough fuel for a husband, we had to stop off at the Sunprint café for Garry’s second breakfast; eggs, potatoes and toast (don’t ask me where it all goes).

Only $12 for three future skirts!

We returned home for a bit, then out again and a bus trip to the fabric store to buy some skirt-making materials (I have no skirts!). My parents picked us up from there and we went to Carendale for 24 quarts of strawberries. We had lunch at a nearby diner – the place was nice but my salad was pretty bland. Then a quick stop a Jung’s for more bean seeds (it’s been a bad year for beans, and none of ours sprouted), and over to my parents’ to “put up” strawberries for the second weekend in a row (last weekend we did 18 quarts).

Afterwards we ran a couple errands with my mom – dog food and tomato cages – and returned home for a little rest.

Our few minutes after sitting down we wer interrupted by Linda knocking on the door asking if we remembered the community meal was tonight. Yes, we said, but we had eaten lunch at 3pm and weren’t hungry. But of course we would still have to pay, so I convinced Garry we should brave the curious looks of our community members and do some quality squirreling. After gathering chicken, salad and fruit tart in self-supplied Tupperware, Garry announced that he hadn’t been hungry until he had seen the chicken, and proceeded to scarf it down (he did give me a couple bites, and it was delicious.)

So there you go – a typical weekend day in our new community life.

What’s been going on, hmm…. Well, since March, Spring has turned into Summer has turned into walking home in hellish 95 degree heat by a lake them smells like piles of dead carp covered in maggots and getting bitten by a mosquito on my finger (finger blood, yummy). Ugh, it’s hot. The garden we planted down in the community area isn’t doing very well, but then again none of the ones down there are… basically it’s construction infill covered in about ¼” of dirt, so nothing is going to grow more than a few inches. That said, we do have a few sad snow peas, though the plants are now dying.

View of the raised bed from our bedroom window.

Since the dirt down there is basically sand and bits of metal, we built a raised bed behind the house next to our unit (they said we could) to grow tomatoes and peppers. Now those are doing very well; in fact we already have a cute little poblano pepper that’s growing about half an inch a day. Apparently plants prefer dirt over construction junk. Who knew.

Fainting couch from start to finish.

Let see… going back in the photo folder, there’s the fainting couch we recovered. Here’s the before and after shots. Not that the before isn’t so bad for a grandma’s bedroom, but we wanted something in the window of our living room for the cats and dog to flop on.

The beast (with dog).

Dog, you say? Yes, indeed. His name is Baxter, he’s 55lb of Beagle and unidentified other canine (Collie, they said), and we adopted him from the Humane Society about two months ago. Two years old, loves to knock people over, and his favorite chew toy is a remote control (he’s destroyed three so far). The kitties have gotten used to him, but I’m not so sure we have. Oh, and he howls, poos in the house, and doesn’t understand personal space (as in, it’s 90 degrees and the overheated furry slug won’t budge off your lap, no matter how hard you push). But, you know… he’s cute.

Goose family in front of lake Wingra.

Let’s see, what other photos do we have… random pictures of walks we’ve taken, through the arboretum and such. It’s amazing watching the seasons change in this neighborhood; there are so many flowers and animals and baby animals… I think it’s been a bumper crop of goslings this year, unless geese normally hatch about 20 babies a piece. They sure are cute until they start hissing at you.

Photos most random.

Garry has been looking for a job since school finished, but the recession isn’t making it very easy (apparently my mom has “never seen such a small classified section”). I’m plugging away at Anchor… I’m going to try and remember to bring some of my work home tomorrow so I can post it. The past few months have been brutally slow, though it seems to be picking up a little. I’ve been doing a little volunteer design to keep my brain from shutting down; last week I created a brochure, poster, and business card for a guy next door. I will be getting paid in “Time Dollars,” which lets you log your volunteer hours on a website called the Timebank and then get stuff back for it, like hair cuts and junk.

Anyway, going to try to start posting more. It’s nice to read back on what I’ve been up too, especially since I seem to have the memory of a 90 year old.